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tv   U.S. House of Representatives  CSPAN  September 4, 2012 10:00am-1:00pm EDT

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candidate starts with a gender gap among women in this country. you work for it and you earn it. you talk about issues that matter to them in their lives. any democrat who went through the 2010 election can tell you that. there was no gender gap. the women broke pretty much 50/50. the reason that there is a gender gap in this election and it works very much on the candidates level, there is also a party problem that the republicans you have a president that signed a bill that would give women equal pay in the workplace. you will hear lilly ledbetter speak. she was underpaid for doing the same work as men and was never able to recoup this money. she did this for her granddaughter. we talked about decisions about women's health care, they're not
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just decisions about health care. when you say you want to get rid of planned parenthood, there are women in this country who are the primary breadwinners who get treatment there they can i get anywhere else. in not only keeps them healthy, it keeps them in their jobs. when you have one president who believes that and another one who does not, that is when you earn the votes of women. on the party level, i believe they do have a structural problem. i believe there are lots of issues with young women that they are out of touch on. this has some universality. when you do not embrace global warming and that we have environmental threats that will destroy, you look at fires, you look at hurricanes, there are
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men and women who feel incredibly out of touch if you do not understand the dynamics and if you're not committed to clean energy. when you take a position that is extremely harsh on how you want to treat children who are brought in this country as infants and have pledged allegiance to america since they were in kindergarten and you want to veto a bill that would let them stay there and become the kind of citizens that the executive at microsoft was talking about that could become the engineers that will work in your technology industry or serving in the military. you lose a whole lot of people. these issues are very important to women. i think you earn to those of -- you earn those votes. that is why we have a gender gap in this race.
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>> how conscious is the president's about the risk of talking about race too much? >> i do not know the question means. he's the president appeared he talks about what is important to the american people every day. it talks about their lives. this is the guy from the day he got into the oval office says he wants 10 letters a night from people to read. he keeps them and read them. he brings them up in conversation. this is the president focused on the lives of american people day in and day out. >> i am struck by the fact that president clinton made an effort to talk about race relations. president obama does that seem to put quite as much emphasis on it. why? >> people govern and run in different times. one of the most controversial issues clinton had to deal with
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was a reaction to affirmative action cases. the african-american community embraced bill clinton and still do, deservedly so. he was younger. he was hit. he played saxophone on in tv. young people saw the next leader of america. with president obama, it is 20 years later. president obama comes into office at a time -- four years ago lehman brothers had not collapsed. we are are losing fight hundred jobs a not -- pipe under a thousand days a -- 500,000 jobs a month. our economy was shaken to the ground. that has been the issue that is front and center.
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that is what president obama is focused on. >> question right here. >> thank you. polling is one thing. the other thing is voter turnout. i just came from call right toe. you hear people talking about a silent majority. hispanics say they will vote for barack obama if they vote. the voter turnout may be very low. is that a problem you are seeing? >> we had a turnout operation that we set in 2008 that would be one of my one anybody had ever seen. then we turned out the vote. if you are also in colorado with the crowd twice the size. there were 14,000 people there. the crop estimate was 7000. some of the voting groups that people were worried about were
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latino vote. i do not believe there is any enthusiasm gap. i believe they are engaging more. it is closer, this is when they pay attention to the race. they are turning out. every stop the president has been at this week, the crowd gets bigger. we have to work hard at it. we have pretty sophisticated ways of identifying who our targets are, who are persuasion targets are, and making sure we spend the right amount of time communicating what we need to communicate to get those voters to the poll. you are not painting everybody with the same message when you do that. that is where some of that individual messaging comes into play. i think you'll have a good turnout operation.
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>> thank you very much for coming. this was a great conversation. we're going to have a panel next. a round of applause. >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> thank you very much. we won an homage to a panel discussion. for the panel discussion, at this group is going to be joined by the political correspondent for open what the national journal -- "the national journal." also on this panel we have a broader group of pollsters including the president of lake research partners, the founder of momentum analysis, and a partner at some ansoloni research. do tweet your questions to
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#dailybriefings. thanks to those who are watching online at nationaljournal.com and on c-span. please join us for this next segment. >> we move you from the left to the right. >> he is bipartisan. can you hear me? thank you so much for being here. i wanted to start off with the same question we asked our republican pollsters in tampa. when you look at the polls and ec which demographic groups obama is doing well, where he is doing not so well, what number is the scary is a number to you?
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>> there are two voting groups that keep me up at night. one of them is seniors. there is no question about that. i think the first group of voters is seniors. the loss seniors four years ago. we had some bounceback with the ryan vote. i think republicans have been very aggressive coming back. the real question is, we have to make up for seniors with our youth vote. when you are not sure how high the turnout will be, it makes the senior vote even more important. there is some evidence speak well for at may have had impact.
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that is a number that keeps me up. it keeps us of this year but could keep us up for two years. in 2014 it will be important related to the seniors are white non-college women. they will be the decisive vote in this election. they will be the swing voter. they're very worried about the economy. the present with a swiss account is totally out of touch with their lives. it cannot be macro economics. it'll be micro. i think republicans failed at delivering a view at how you are going to make her life better. we have a challenge in the next three days to do that. starting off with michelle obama and then bill clinton and then ending with the president. we have a stellar lineup. we better get it made.
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the third thing is enthusiasm. the democrats enthusiasm has been lagging behind republican enthusiasm. they are trying to solidify enthusiasm. they are having trouble. i do not think clint eastwood did much. we have to make sure that our enthusiasm takes up with theirs. >> those of the my top two as well. in terms of democratic politics. she talked about seniors and non-college educated women, i will look at it a little differently to geographically. 20 take a look at florida and north carolina, those were great states for obama -- when you take a look at florida and north carolina, those were great states for obama. if they become really important
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for obama. the democratic party has to move beyond the northeast/midwest party. these are continue battleground states. we will want to have them be that beyond national politics at the presidential level. you see that within virginia with kane. the other thing i will say is that if you want to talk about enthusiasm, i look a little less at enthusiasm in trying to focus on pragmatism. your message at the end of the day when people go into the voting booth is to is going to look out for me. to is more like me? sometimes we overblow enthusiasm because politics start so early. we are talking about enthusiasm gap in march. labor day is when the bell rings
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and people are engaged. they will be engaged at a pragmatism level. that's small amounts of undecided will come to us because of that. >> i would agree with everything they said. if you other things to touch on. the first is the young women and moms. i've been standing walmart moms. we did survey work and we have a series of focus groups. we asked a question, are you more concerned about your household economy or the national economy and the nation's debt? walmart hollande 2-170 concerned about their own. -- walmart moms said two-one concerned about their own. they are not just a downscale
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moms. they are across the board. they do tend to be a swing. they have swung over the last few elections. they are looking at all women, how their household finances in decision making really changes what they're doing from day to day and how they view the political debates. the other thing i would mention is how people feel about right track/wrong track. that is something. we had a low point in terms of the wrong track right before obama took office. the nation is going through tough times. that is how it has been stable in a bad way. >> let's talk about geography. it is monday before the election. where does president obama's plainly and? award is romney land his plane? -- obama's plan land?
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where is ronnie's does romney land his plane? >> we know the battleground states. virginia, ohio, florida. the main victory was votes. you can lose the two big enchilada is the florida and ohio, canada's north carolina and virginia and indiana and still win this. there is a big map. ronnie does have to get an inside straight. people forget the magnitude of the win and what mitt romney has to do. we're going to win virginia. that means we kill those iowa and new hampshire -- that means
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we can lose iowa and new hampshire. >> what mitt romney should not do is what he did yesterday, ago boating is a talking to regular voters on labor day. >> there are only two steps since the campaign 10 years ago. i think he goes ohio. i would at colorado's to the mix. wisconsin has gotten more into play because of that romney on the ticket. some of this is not only to one of these days we will block an. >> has ryan put wisconsin and play? >> it is a very swing state.
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ryan has held onto a blue-collar district. he has a lot of personal appeal there. in the end, it is going to be less ryan and more the romney/ryan ticket. >> can romney put michigan in play? >> he cannot. it is too far gone. i think they have wasted money up there. i did want to make one other thing about where they will land. you have these eight or 10 battleground state. it is not even just the state. now it is the media market. it is charlotte or richmond or tampa. presidential campaigns are not even really, listen, and they
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communicate in the entire state. you can take a look at the public and see where the intensity is with any state and see geographically not only are eight or 10 states going to get the attention, but there are media markets. it is fascinating. >> the other thing is to go to these media markets and a college campus and someplace where you can improve and boost turnout and enthusiasm. >> i wanted to ask you about the demographic makeup of the electorate in november. in 2008, we saw a very different the electorate than we have seen in presidential elections before. knowing what you know about the enthusiasm gap, can you really expect an electorate that looks like it in in 2008? if you could specifically address black turnout.
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>> the thing that is really driving the change in the composition of the electorate is demographic changes. that is the real story. half of america is on merit. an incredibly -- unmarried. an incredibly big turnout for latino voters. we are looking at any election in the 2000's will look very different from ronald reagan's electorate because of the tremendous demographic changes. you have a situation now where you have to slash three of seniors white and 73% of the school kids in california of color. >> wii no changes are coming.
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the question is whether the numbers -- we know changes are coming. the question is whether the numbers will translate at the pole. >> north carolina was won by obama. i think the story at the end of not be will hee will he wi win it again. if you can move the hispanic to 3%, it means a lot at the end of the day. this is not being talked about as much as it was in 2008. the electric in north carolina is more african-americans than it was not good 2008.
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that becomes important. >> -- than it was announced a 2008. that becomes important. >> they are so aggressive about the voter suppression efforts. there is the relentless degree to which they are trying to have identification, not use student at it vacation. -- student identification. >> that is an excellent point. a lot of voters will not be basing their voting decisions on which party is using voter i.d. loss. it is important. the other thing is, i think this is a sense of the coverage. place the blame on the beat of the young people and minorities for not staying with obama.
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that 530 is not the same as a midterm -- 53% is not the same as a midterm election. i think it seems out of sync with how the electorate is working. >> do you think that mitt romney's campaign is playing the race card with welfare reform t? >> ps. >-- yes. >> it is fairly blatant that they are trying to appeal with what is an untruth. why else would they be playing it so hard? >> i cannot speak for their
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motivations and whether they are knowingly playing the race card. if they are not knowingly, they should be able to think that through and wondered the effect it has on the dialogue, how it affects the way the romney campaign is viewed. whether not they are du deliberately or accidentally doing it. >> i do not know that they're moving voters. there are certain things they do for the base as well. paul ryan is one of them. we have not necessarily seen that yet. joe willing to say that they were playing the race card? why does he think it is not affecting voters'?
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>> why would some democrats be afraid of saying they're playing the race card? >> i do not know they would be. there's probably disagreement about whether this is happening. there is an honest disagreement in our party. we talked about this last night. whether or not we already lost any voters that have been influenced by the race card. that is a part of the honest debate in our party. racism is alive and well in this country. >> margie was talking about walmart moms, not college educated white women. there has constantly been this
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tension in terms of decision making. the democrats speak to them on economic issues, a health-care, fair wages. the republicans talk to them on immigration, god, and patriotism and welfare reform. they are trying to touch a nerve that basically isolate the fact that a lot the middle class people feel like they are on their own. we are trying to do the pragmatic thing and talk about them. the republicans are trying to attack it as the worst possible ankle to read them away. this is nothing new. you can call it what ever you want. i agree in terms of the
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motivation. they are playing a card which is a wedge card to get them at an emotional level that has nothing to do with their economic interests. >> what it is tapping into is this worry that a lot of people have, that somebody is getting a better deal than me. some people get to the head of the line for support. they literally feel this is some anxiety that someone has an advantage in like that i cannot get. the republicans use that very reasonably -- that's a reasonable and i need to their advantage. they're hiding that incident encouraging middle-class voters to get up for themselves. correct i would take it even
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further. i to not even think they're trying to hide it. they know if they are double digit a behind the middle-class they have a tough time winning the election. thatre trying to minimize distinction. met ronnie was a -- mitt romney was not releasing his taxes. they know the vulnerability. >> you are doing a good job of explaining the dog whistles. help me understand what barack obama and his advisers might be worried about in terms of messages. if the press or to stand up and say that is race baiting -- president were to stand up and say that is race baiting. >> i cannot speak for the campaign. i think that when you get hit like that, what you do is give
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the facts. what they are saying is not true. at the end of the day, that becomes the most important thing for american voters to hear, what is the truth. when voters look at barack obama, they are beyond just looking at a black president. they are looking at the president of the united states. someday it will be a woman. someday it'll be a hispanic or another white male. the americans have a good grasp of that. what dole said -- joel said is right on target. that is not a priority in terms of trying to message on the president's race. >> when you're talking about any ism, we have both been in situations where we have been treated sexistly.
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it is much more powerful when john paulson out than we do. -- calls it out than when we do. >> allow to push back that republicans are the only -- i want to push back on the thought republicans are only pushing the wedge issues. obama the same mitt romney will support you. how is that any different than what the republicans are doing? >> they brought it up. we did not. if john had said we are going to get the run on the war on women. they're going to do with the birth control and everything else. we would have said everything was settled in 1960. i do not think they will be that stupid. that is a moderate governor hugh did not have that record in massachusetts. these stands were unimaginable
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two years ago. we would never have based its strategy on it. whenever would have been handed this strategy. >> the romney campaign welfare ads are based on falsehood. are there republicans who had a hearing about birth control and only invited men? that happens. >> the same fact checkers have also said that the obama ads say he would outlaw abortion in the cases of rape and are also not true. >> if you want to reverse roe v wade, that in the discussion. i do not know where else you can take that. >> much romney has had a party of different up positions on abortion. paul ryan has his further to the right. that is different than barack
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obama. barack obama has not had 10 different positions on getting rid of the work requirement. >> i do not think that contraception is a wedge issue. my 20 year old daughter when i e-mail her, i e-mails your something from sandra fluke, she said she is my hero. that becomes important. that is touching their lives in some way. >> one of the things is women's health a part of health reform. it is beyond abortion and birth control. mandatory breast cancer coverage, among the most popular pieces of the reform. when republicans want to say it the repeal of, why should we have the coverage?
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>> we talked a lot about the democratic base. but talk about the undecided voters. i think you know something's about the undecided voters. can you talk about that and the challenges in reaching them when they are this tiny sliver of the electorate? >> they are late to ciders. they may not all vote. there will be lower information typically. they are going to need even more and more advertising, more and more direccontact. they want specifics. they are not necessarily out looking for specifics. they need a lot of attention. they're hoping to get some
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information from the debate. they are really going to decide the last few weeks. >> there are two things about them. the debates will influence them. they will not be watching the debate themselves. it'll be the news reporting of the debate. the unusual porting -- the news reporting will have an effect. in 1976, most of america was [unintelligible] by the next morning, they had reinterpreted whether he won or lost the debate. one of the reasons that joel was being careful was micro- targeting. you have 20 5% of romney voters saying they would consider someone else. the television is actually less trying to influence undecided voters and more trying to keep the 25% in their camp.
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we do not target anyone. both campaigns are going to go to the ground. now we have the ability. we do not have to go after non- college educated women. we are going to households. they know the doors they're going to walk on -- not on. they have tschedule around each other. >> they know exactly what to say. >> the undecided vote is so small that it really does, targeting is so different, that it really does come down to this one woman in the media market to a works part-time out of her house and has two kids and mike marlomerlot. a billion dollars is going to be spent on just this one woman.
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it is that small. if you go back to the beginning of the year and any of these web sites that do the national polling, this has been street lighting. lining.ight flyin it does not move but a couple point up and down. if you go to the battleground states, it has kind of stayed there in the mid-40's. obama has been ahead in most places by two or three points. they have been in places like michigan, etc.. there is not a whole lot of movement with a billion dollars spent. >> we talked to undecided walmart moms. we asked them, what are you thinking about? how are you trying to weigh between your two options?
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they are physically grappling with it. i am really shuttling. on the one hand, i feel like i am disappointed in obama. i wanted to believe. i had great expectations. i am not sure if mr. romney is the guy. i can not connect with him. i do not think he is speaking to me. i do not think he is fighting for people like me. these are the things they're trying to weigh as they had to the election. in the romney campaign, it is more difficult for people to warm up to him if they have not yet. president obama is going to lay out some of his plans this week. you did not hear romney do that next week -- last week.
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>> we're going to take some questions now. iright here. >> i am from the tampa bay times. in florida, we have seen voter registration among democrats with about to under 9000 -- 209, 000. you have lost a lot of ground. the democrats have gained -- republicans have gained during that same time. now that they have outloud -- al lot of third-party registration, can you make that up? >> that is not a loss. the fact that you did that number could 2008 and did not do as much in last 13 months does not mean that all the same
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number was available. you have to put the universe in your base. that is a big feather in your cap at that time. that is still why there are big advantages in certain states. what was done in the past. >> i think the thing we have to worry about, we are not so worried that we did not registered to under 9000 -- 209, 000. the issue is the mobile end of that. what we are concentrating on now, if the two groups that are particularly mobile our young people. and on married women. -- unmarried women. that is the issue. that is why so many have been
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thrown off the rolls. what we have to focus on is the mobile and of that. we can go and. we can get the ones. we have the time to do that if they do not keep changing the laws in ways we consider a constitutional -- uncons titutional. >> paul ryan threw down the gauntlet on medicare. it was based on polling that we discussed at this event in tampa. i am wondering if you could share with us how medicare will play out in your polling on the issue. >> we have done extensive polling on medicare. some has been released for the national committee. i think it will be doing some more pulling. first of all, to say that paul ryan would end the traditional medicare and leave you on your
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own to negotiate with your insurance company is a horrific to voters. the republicans know that is a very strong argument. that is why they have been so aggressive. what we did was put it back into medicare. they know this is the danger of argument. at the presidential level it is part of the dialogue in terms of going back to get the senior vote. the place i think you will see it play out is in the congressional and senate level. all year long we have been trying to tell people ryan. we do not have to define ryan anymore. everyone knows who is. this is a big issue.
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we watch for it to hurt a lot of republicans. >> there is so much else in there, two. there is the medicare debate which i think polls have shown people opposed right oppose a plan on medicare. so much else in there, cutting college affordability, food assistance for hundred kids, when you talk about that, people say what? it is an endless list that makes the whole thing seem completely non-starter. >> i wanted to ask about voter i.d. a couple of you refer to it. my native state pennsylvania has a voter ideologue that looks like it will be in effect in texas.
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i was wondering what you think the effect will be in increasing minority contact. >> i think this has the ability to relate his a lot of people off. when you mess with people access to anything, contraception or the voting booth, it makes people mad. i think it will backfire. one of the story lines the day after election is early on in the day there is going to be a lot of stories out there. in 2008, it was about the line. are they going to accommodate all this people that came out to vote? one of the stars is going to be with people turned away it'll be early in the day and it be an amazing get out the vote for us. there'll be stories early on
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about people being denied to vote. the press rightfully will report on it early enough to actually make sure to motivate more people to come out. >> it is unprecedented organizing at the organizational level. i think you're going to see a lot of groups make sure their voters know the steps in a boating. the obama campaign has launched a very effective campaign. a campaign that those are really done by the naacp. i think you're going to see voters and messaging to african- american voters. we a people who died for this right. we're not going to be denied. the idea being that there'll be people playing at important sites you have your back.
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i think that is going to be very effective. >> i do not think it is going to suppress turnout. i hope that we can package that with issues of undisclosed campaign contributions. our process has really run away from the average person. i think that is compelling to a lot of people. i do not know if it is compelling to everybody. some folks are more engaged and some still angry. and that government has run amok. i am not sure that that is a i swing voter message appeared taken further remind people what is at stake. >-- swing voter.
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it can remind people what is at stake. >> republicans used the obama phrase "you did not build that." now you see testimony saying "we built that." do you think that will hurt the obama message? >> i think it was taken out of context. i was sorry to see obama even respond to it. if you heard the whole speech, you understood what he meant. i think the republicans are very nimble. social media has made this a nimble environment. they grasped onto that. we will not give a growing economy unless we are in this together. we run small businesses. we also know that if we do not have good schools, we do not have the people in our firms we
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need. if we do not have the internet, we do not have any way to send our data out. i think that people knew what the president. it is a partnership. it is a community. if you go back to those undecided voters who are more female, they know. it is everyone in the community doing it together. and they like the partnership. >> we ask moms of what can the government do to make your said payer, if they my life to build or buy my milk. they did not say the regular corporations. they said pay my electric bill. one of the speakers had given a seminar on how to get more government funding or something. lots of people, you can build
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your company and still get support from the government. you can run your household and get support from the government. a lot of people see that. >> just to push back on that, i agree that comment was taken out of context. if you look at what the president was saying, he was delivering a robust defense of government. is that a message? that is really the big debate. how much government do we need? busy on the winning side of that? -- do you think he is on the winning side of that? >> it is one of the ban against -- the biggest gender gaps out
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there. what is interesting right now, things are so bad that women to- one say there is a role for government. it does not mean the government should be in my bedroom or running my small business. this is a partnership. we will take the best that everybody has got. >> the national narrative' is going to be interesting. it will be about pell grants and student loans. that is government. >> do people know that? that.ll yes they know >> this is republican messaging. they have done a good job. >> but they expose themselves.
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they expose themselves on things like the ryan budget. people like to talk about the medicare side of it. what is it that a 20% cut in higher education tax you'r? you're trying to get your kid to college. things like medicaid, which people do not thinking about, 70% of nursing home patients are on medicaid. we are on the right side of this. right down to what joel was talking about. people will take three-one cuts to make the upper income pay little more. >> there are no democrats talking about how we should expand government so there is a huge government bureaucracy is handling everything. that is not a democratic message. there is a republican message to just cut everything.
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they have just push themselves too far on this. these people do what government assistance for themselves. maybe they do not wanted for somebody else. >> there is the whole regulatory agenda. this is particularly true for women voters. you want to be on hold for insurance company for six hours of? i like regulations what they can cannot do to me. small businesses like us cannot get loans anymore. houses are going under. do you want to be on your own? no. people what regulations. you cannot do it on your own. >> quite a few months ago there was an ad put out by the obama campaign featuring a cartoon
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women enter progress through life. the theme was what would be taken off three romney administration. it was pulled off because republicans lampooned it as a government program that obama was pushing. it seems that we have talked a lot about what the government can do. in your mind, how does obama deal with this idea that most of his solutions tend to be fairly traditional government programs. there is a lack of new ideas. in an environment where the fiscal rope is short yo.
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>> can you narrow the question down? >> what does obama offer, what will he sell on thursday night? they say this too much of this into much of that. >> are you asking what president obama will say to the business community? >> i do not know what he's going to say. there have been something like 16 cut in small business taxes. there's been a cut in payroll taxes. i think that the republicans will tell you one thing and we will tell the truth in terms of what he has done was small- business is. small businesses have been the focus of the middle class.
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>> i just got a poll before we came out showing that obama had an advantage over romney on helping small business. >> i wanted to pick up a question from earlier opposed to our panelists. does our presidents need to talk about race? part of the motivation would be he needs to mobilize these folks that came out in 2008 you have stood by him and tried to be patient. does he need to give them a reason to come to the polls? how over should he be in talking about race? what are the risks there? >> i did at the keys to talk about race. nobody is going to miss its. is the first african-american president. would bill clinton need to talk about women?
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>> she would. what i think she would not actually. i mean to talk about her record for all americans. i think of a will talk about his record for all americans. the enthusiasm gap is not african-american voters who are at risk. they will be out. the enthusiasm that is more to the extent that it still exists among young people and unmarried voters. i think his race is obvious. aboutk he's going to talk an agenda that gets this entire country moving again to make sure everything in this country has a great opportunity and every family can get into the middle class. that will be in stark contrast to clint eastwood and mitt romney. >> obama does not need speech writing tips from me. his message is we are all in this together. he can do that by not saying
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they are doing this or this. part of his message is we are all in this together. everybody's working together. that has always been his message. >> time for one more question. >> in wyoming the electorate is largely white, a multi- generation, blue-collar, religious. we have not done that well with that part of the electorate for a long time. they are a big part of the electorate nationwide let alone in wyoming. we should be getting them by right. we are concerned about their interests. we also share a lot of their basic values. we do not seem to be doing terribly well with them.
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how can we do better? >> that is democrats in general. i think the one thing that you find in the national polling is for rural voters, democrats have a great way to talk with them. rural voters are disproportionately seniors. medicare issues will be a very big issue to talk to rural voters. royal voters are heavily disproportionately veterans. that is one thing we have not talked about. obama's record is tremendous. it goes back to the cuts and the boats that republicans have taken on debt issues. we have done better sense karcher who himself -- since carter who himself was a rural
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candidate. >> by pushing my fellow westerners. -- i appreciate my fellow westerners. i do not think we get the message and out. we do not pay enough attention to our potential. the 16talking about battleground states. there're a lot of states that are not in the good of shape. know in my family have health insurance. -- no one in my family had help insurance. states like yours and mine, a kid from a ranch in montana went to i believe schools. we have good schools in montana. no private schools in my whole state.
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i live 25 miles from here. we have an agenda for rural america. we need to use our strengths. >> i want to thank the panel very much for a great conversation. [applause] >> thank you very much to colinda, margie, and john. >> the national journal will be presenting every morning from charlotte. we will be covering it live. uptown charlotte is known as downtown in most other cities. the whole of the 2012 democratic national convention. the mayor joins us now, mayor anthony foxx.
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thank you for being on c-span and talking to our viewers. if you were to give advice to another mayor who may or may not want to host the convention, what would your advice to be? would you say go for it or not? >> i would say go for it. having a convention in your city is really almost the olympics of politics. it is a wonderful opportunity for your citizens to engage in process.vics it is a wonderful history lesson. historical moment happen when these things happen. it is a great thing to do. >> what for some of the biggest logistical challenges that you face? >> charlotte is a fairly compact city in terms of its downtown. it is a great thing for pedestrians. it means that people can walk around pretty freely.
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we do not have to get into a car to go many places. as we have done the planning process, we want to make sure there is as much ease of moving into the central district as possible. we are continuing to work through the changes that occur when you are using multiple the news in been used in the same event. we have tuesday and wednesday in the basketball arena and tuesday and thursday and the football arena downtown, and it will be more of a challenge for commuters to understand the differences and the roads those days. -- in the roads those days. host: we will put the numbers on the screen if you want to participate in the conversation with mayor foxx. guest: the city of charlotte has not put any money into the
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putting on of this convention. we obviously devoted some of the staff time to help plan for it, but we promise of the bid at the beginning the city would not foot the bill for this, and that has not. host: you will be speaking tonight, and we will cover that live gavel-to-gavel. what is the theme of your talk? guest: i am charlotte native. i am immensely proud of were the city has come from. i will talk a little bit about my experience growing up in this city, and how it relates both to have the city should look at the city and how people should think about our country. our city has grown up not on the river and with some of the natural advantages many of the other cities have, but it is a bootstrap city in the sense that
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the determination of the people who live here have made the difference in terms of what has become. we're not the 17th largest city in the country. we have the second-largest financial services center in the country behind new york. we are home to some of the best medicine practice around the world, and many other attributes to the community, including the fact that we are in the emerging world energy capital now that we of the largest energy utility in the country based in charlotte, as well as the second-largest in the world. we feel very confident about our future. right now the country needs to hear the message all of us have to work harder to compete in the global economy. host: from your perspective as the host of this convention, how do you view this through a civic alliance, partisan lines? you are also a democrat. guest: yes. [laughter] as mayor of the city hosting a
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convention, you certainly want to trump at the economic development of bandages -- trumpet the economic development advantages, particularly that of but other city on an economic advantage has a calling card all around the world. that is very important for the city and something that will be a legacy long term. there is also a political dimension to this. north carolina is a battleground state, and they do have an opinion about who would serve this country just as president over the next four years. host: the unemployment rate is 10%. a little above the national average. why is that? guest: we are the fastest- growing metro and the country. i was elected mayor in december 2009. we lost 27,000 jobs in the city of charlotte two years prior.
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we have gained 30,000 jobs over the past two years. we are working to grow our economy, but the population growth, coupled with the fact that we're still making traditions and our economy, moving away from wholesale perception that charlotte is based in financial-services, to really expanding and diversifying the economy into areas like health care, energy, small business and entrepreneurs ism. we're seeing a large numbers of people are voting with their feet and moving here. we're working to integrate them into the economy. host: population is 178,000. usa today is this article, unions for a go at north carolina, but still back obama. did the democratic convention had issues with the fact that north carolina is a right to
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work state? host: i think somguest: i think. some have been very supportive from the beginning. what i would say is having the convention in north carolina was such an important statement by the president. to say they're going to compete in every state. north carolina has never hosted of political convention. my guests for what the reason was it is this was a way for the democrats to reclaim the south. takeovhost: if you are a democre to have a conversation with mayor foxx from charlotte -- independents --
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you can send us a twitter, or also use one we are using all week -- email at journal@cspan.org. lets' began with a call from a democrat. caller: from the beginning president obama was dealt a bad hand. what the republicans tell me before he became president was not true. once he got into the office, he found it was worse off than ever. if he did not bail out the banks and stuff, you were talking about a bad depression. i think we would have been in a bad, bad depression. also, they point president
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obama is his first time, and i will vote for him this term. i would like to say did not listen to much of the republican party, but i did want to hear mayor ron a. mitt romney undoubtably is out of touch with foreign affairs. he said why set a deadline to bring the soldiers home? bring them home tomorrow. has he forgotten -- host: you have laid a couple of things on the table. let's see if there is a response. guest: let me say this about what my friend john is saying. the convention last week in tampa was a convention in which the republican party has tried
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to create of the near of being the party of supporting things and being for things, as opposed to being the party of opposition. i think one of the biggest challenges we face in our country right now is we haven't really the republican congress that has been extremely focused on being against things, and not so much fun being four things. our country cannot get out of the block as long as we have this narrative of for and against. we all need to come together and figure out how to move this country forward. to his credit, i think the president has tried to do that. congress has been very difficult to deal with. you have some who say their mission was to assure the president only had one term. that is not the way to leave the country. sometimes it puts politics over
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the interests of our country. i do think last week what we sell with the republican convention was an interest in trying to change the narrative and start talking about what they were for. however, when you dig down to what they were saying, is still a lot of granule detail that is not available in terms of what mitt romney would do to this country. i do know he would really threatened medicare. his approach to government would emphasize protecting the most wealthy at the expse of the middle class, and i think he is not as interested in the long- term future of the country with investments in education, infrastructure, and so forth. i think people will have a clear choice when they hear both sides of the argument, and i think they will pick the president of north carolina and around the country. host: we talked with the mayor of tampa last week.
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he mentioned that the oncoming convention meant he could get projects throughout the city bureaucracy faster -- through the city bureaucracy faster. guest: he is a great mayor. on the security side, the security grants the federal government have provided us have allowed us to stop -- step of the police department, and in some places provide the kind of equipment that we need to secure our city for this event. some of those will stay after the convention is over. in that sense, yes, but we're still going through the normal processes on lots of other things. i have a big transit project i hope we can get free invited by the end of the year. that has not been sequenced with
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the convention. that is working independently of it. >> is that the expansion of the light rail system? guest: absolutely. host: how large is it now and will it be utilized during the convention? guest: it is working out. we normally collect $14,000 on a monday. yes order we collected $50,000 in fares. our utilization of the transit system was 33,000 troops yesterday, which is about two- three times what we normally experience. it has been very heavily used. the transit system consists of a regional bus system, along with one of right -- as light rail line that runs into the southern part of the city. we're hoping to expand the southern line 10 miles to the northern part of the city and run it and to the large university, the university of
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north carolina charlotte host: on the front pages this article -- a new stage for hit anthony anthony foxx. next call is on the independent line. caller: i would just like to say that i supported president obama and 2008. i was at democrats for a long time, and then i switched to independent. i will be supporting mitt romney this time. my wife is on medicare and medicaid, and all of the doctors tell her it is because of obama care and regulation. up here we have a lot of furniture companies and textiles, which is what i am experienced in. there is none of here now. president obama said those jobs
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will never come back. that is very concerning to me, because there is no reason why they should not come back. i know he was built a tough hand, but was hired to fix the problem. they talk about bush had all these banks sinking, but the on of what rate was 7.8% when he left. since obama it has been above 8%. i will be watching the convention. i will be watching the wrong be this time. -- mitt romney this time. guest: i hope as you watch the convention this week that you hope see and hear the hard works administration has been confronted. the reality is that we have
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gone up through several decades of steady declines in manufacturing activity in the united states, which has affected lots of people, including the calller. this president has started to turn that around. we have more manufacturing activity in the u.s. today then we haven't any point over the past 15 years. this president has focused on bringing manufacturing back to the united states. he has worked very hard to strengthen the community college system and educational system overall to provide work force training to help train people for the jobs of the 21st century, including three in college. that is a big piece of where the country -- where the president wants to take as. by the way, i am not so sure mitt romney has his eyes on those types of issues going forward. the second issue having to do with medicare and medicaid, here is the thing, health-care costs
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have risen exponentially, and even before that. part of what the president health-care plan is designed to do is to stem the increases and those costs to everyone over the next couple of years, particularly those that need health care the most. he is also going to work to get 30 million americans who do not have insurance right now back on the insurance rolls, as well as students who are often after graduating from college have a gap in health care coverage and are now able to have health care provided through their parents insurer. five point to you is basically this, the president is trying to work the delivery of a health care-- my point to you is this, the president is trying to work the delivery of health care into this. what i would also take say to s mitt romney and paul ryan would virtually break the plan as we
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know it. it would make it very difficult for those who need health care difficult to get it. that is why one of the reasons republicans are running away from this plan. host: anthony foxx as a law degree from new york, university. next call comes from jane, republican. -- james. caller: i'm still here. mr. mayor, we lost all of the textile jobs, and all of the textile jobs in canastas. you forgot to bring up one big thing, and that is nascar. guest: you are right about that. [laughter] host: what about charlotte as a
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textile city or textile region? still textile's down there? guest: there are pockets, but we experienced a massive departure of our textile manufacturing activity in the area over the past 25 years. it has brought a lot of pain. just a few years ago, a plant finally closed, which was a huge facility just north of the city of charlottetown and fleeing hundreds, if not thousands of people. those types of closings have incredibly difficult impact on communities. on the other hand, we're starting to see different types of manufacturing coming into our area. that same plant that closed a few years ago has now been regenerated into what is called the north carolina research campus. it is a facility working on creating new food choices, a lot
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of biotech is happening in the area. it is what you might call advanced manufacturing. aree starting to see that around the region. we're starting to make economic choices about where to send jobs. host: how did duke energy and the north carolina at regulatory commission issued affect how you plan for this commission? guest: not at all. the host committee is totally independent of duke energy. we have had a great run of success. jim rogers has been incredibly strong leader for us on this committee.
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i have tried to do everything i can to make this event successful. we have a team who has helped to make this convention of success and we are delighted to have the convention here. host: thomas, a democrat. please go ahead. caller: think you for allowing me to come on. -- thank you for allowing me to come on. good to see a black mayor looking energetic and young the .ob creator the job creators were white men, and they ship them to china or wherever, and now you're of a black man, the leader of the united states, but it was the job creators who shipped the jobs overseas. my question to you is, i noticed
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a lot of the coverage i see is the panels. i say -- see you one black black person, four white people. i am told the african americans is the strongest base the republican party has, we are not being really highlighted. no one really knows you exist. host: mayor foxx. guest: let me say this, we face in this country a real tough set of issues. we are diversifying as a country. we are becoming more diverse every single day. a generation ago with african- americans and whites, and now the color palette has expanded
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into asians and some of the others. that creates so many challenges. another challenge we face is we are also facing a time when we are trying to dig out of this recession that was literally and 80-year recession, the toughest recession in a very long time. at the same time, we are facing long-term challenges like the lack of good infrastructure in this country. unfortunately i am a patriot, when i go to places overseas i do seek better reports, better railways. i see better road systems. as a country, we cannot afford to have those types of disparities occur. what this president is confronting is a country literally in the middle of a massive transition. middle of a vision
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transition. what i think this president is doing is doing the best of any human being can do to try to point our way out. he is telling us very clearly that as a nation we still have work andue doing boat lettthe in a great talent we have as a country. also making sure we have the kind of infrastructure that will allow us to compete for jobs in the future. also, prepare our young people for the global economy by giving them an educational system that prepares them for the world they're walking into, not the one we just left. in addition, this president is giving us the vision. that is what i think is so important is that last week, if you watch the republican convention, you would have thought the president had good intentions but could not deliver, but what in fact the president has a very clear vision, a very strong record, and a group of people in
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washington who just do not want to see him succeed. i think that is terrible, because this country has always thrived and risen to the occasion when we needed to, and we have to make the case we need new leadership, not in the white house, but in congress. host: usa today gallup poll approval rating, of african- americans top the list that 95 percent. democrats 80%. city residents of 60%. suburbanites are 49%. whites are at 43%. as the democratic party become the party of the city? guest: i think the urban issues have always been a big part of the modern democratic party. certainly if you look at groups like the u.s. conference of mayors, we do have some republican mayors, but in the largest cities typically define their democratic, not because it
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is planned that way, but that is the with the electorate has gone and some of the larger cities. i do think the democratic party has some very strong presence in our cities across the country. it is no surprise. urban issues are the ones that typically gravitate towards the democratic party anyway. it is not to say we do not compete for rural votes for folks that do not live in cities. host: mayor foxx was the first democratic mayor of charlotte and 22 years. in politico, democrats see their future in city hall as the article. it highlights mayor foxx, julian .astro, and
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guest: mayors often are on the front line of government. we are at the no excuses level of government. if the garbage is not picked up for the pot hole does not get fixed, we hear about it. there is no democratic or republican garbage paul. we are at the level of government that people can see, touch, and feel. i think it is wise for the democrats in president to focus on what is happening to our cities, and the workers tried to transition, and the cities as they try to grow and accommodate all the growth we are experiencing in urban centers across the country? what is happening with education where we're seeing such a huge disparity among the urban communities in terms of output. that is the kind of conversation we need to have as a country. there is no better group of
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people to put that conversation on the table thean mayors. i am excited to see some of my colleagues speaking, and i look forward to hear what they have to say. as far as me, i am just a little country mayor. host: are you term limit it? guest: no. host: do you have aspirations beyond the mayor of charlotte? guest: i have always wanted to be useful and i feel like i am doing what i am led to be doing right now. i have two young children and a wonderful life. our familyoinienjoying right now and want to be around my kids as long as they enjoy hanging out with me. my future will depend a lot on family issues, but i am excited to be the host mayor of the democratic convention this year and hope everyone has a great
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time, and we send a prison often a great way. host: russell on the independent line. you are on the air with mayor anthony foxx. doing ayou guys are tremendous job. i am 30 miles away from tampa. i have been a republican until last year. what happened was i had two strokes, and if not for health care, ia's would not have gotten the help i needed. he is not only build out the banks, but build up the car industry. most of the people talking about him will not be in the spotlight. i was so embarrassed to be a former republican when i see the allies that were told, because i do follow politics.
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to see the of republican party stoop so low to get the point across. i do not care what color you are, if he did not get out and vote, you're just not a good american. guest: i do believe this president has worked really hard, and i think the messages we heard last week were messages in many cases that were not accurate and did stretch fax along the way. the president is such an effective leader from a substantive standpoint. what is happening right now in the campaign season is the republicans are creating narrative's. some of them do not even apply to reality. i'm hoping over the next couple of days the level get set again and this convention helps to push the reset button and let
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people understand exactly what has happened, who has put their shoulder to the will to help move this country forward, and who is in the best position to move the country forward. i do think some of what is happening in this campaign season is some people think that if they say something loud enough and long enough they will eventually become truth. i think we have to work really hard as a party to make sure people can vote the way they want to vote, but as long as they understand the difference and the truth, that is all you can ask for as a candidate. i think when people see the truth and understand it, they will support the president, because he is the one telling you exactly what is going on, and giving it to you pretty straight. the other folks are not doing that. host: host: mayor foxx, we have a live camera over the convention
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center. how far is that from the time warner are rain attacks -- time- warner arena? guest: it is about three or four box. -- blocks. host: how many from charlotte have volunteered for the convention? guest: more than 16,000 people signed up. we needed 10,000. host: the last call for a mere anthony foxx from chicago -- from charlotte comes from illinois. niche. -- niche. caller: i hear the president and the mayor talking about infrastructure. i worked for the state government in illinois for 20 years so i am familiar with how jobs are funded and the costs of
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things here in illinois. it is basically 90% federal, 10% stake, and with a $16 trillion deficit, sir, where do you think you will get money from to fund the infrastructure president is proposing? thank you. guest: it is a good question. here is the point that i would make their. we are at a point in this country where we have to ask ourselves what happens if we do not make those investments? again, we are competing across the globe for jobs and part of competing for jobs is on the basis that we could move goods and services faster than the next country. if we allow the disparity where we are infrastructure-wise, with roads, bridges, rail, we will
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find ourselves in a more obsolete position than we ever intended to be. so, i think the question has to be asked. i think the answer is targeted investments. does that mean we do not work to reduce the deficit? no. it means that we find places that do not impact our long-term ability to grow. that is what the president is trying to do. his approach is not just to keep spending money year after year, and by the way a lot of the money that has contributed to the deficit was spent on the iraq war, the afghanistan war, in tax reductions and not paid for by president george w. bush. this president wants to reduce the deficit and maintain targeted spending in areas that provide long-term growth --
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education, infrastructure, research -- those are things we have always done that all of the country to move forward. host: we have been talking with mayor anthony foxx, a democrat, mayor of charlotte. we look forward to hearing your speech tonight at the convention. thank you for being with us on c-span. guest: thank you. host: coming up, we will talk with the president of the chamber of commerce in charlotte, bob morgan in just a minute, but we also want to show you the convention center. this is where the media has gathered. all of the media will have workspaces in the convention center. the delegates could come over there. there are some shops, places to buy souvenirs and a lot of security goes into the convention center as well. it is not quite nearly as heavy
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as the times warner cable arena, but you can see the gifts that you can buy. the convention kicks off today. 16,000 hotel rooms have been built around the charlotte-area. 250 auto buses will be used to transport delegates. 15,000 members of the media, just like in tampa, and in that center, podium within the time warner cable arena, 20 miles of cables have been installed for cameras, four telephones, all of the different electronic needs within the convention. eight of the states in charlotte have delegations bigger than 160 delegates -- including california, texas, new york.
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5500 delegates will be there. there are about 400 alternates. the convention kicks off at 5:00 p.m. eastern time. we will hear from debbie wasserman schultz, as well as the chairman of the convention. representative steny hoyer will be speaking in the 5:00 p.m. eastern time hour. then, in the 6:00 p.m. hour, governor ben. do, then illinois governor pat quinn, then former virginia governor tim town. in the 7:00 p.m. hour, we'll hear from mayor foxx, who we just spoke to, majority leader harry reid. jimmy carter from video will be president, and joe kennedy the
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third. then, and nancy keenness -- nancy keenan, tammy duckworth and then represented james clyburn from south carolina will speak. in the 9:00 hour,. strickland, kathleen sebelius, rahm emanuel. then, in the final hour, the maryland governor, martin no mallee -- martin o'malley, who was the talk about in the 2016 presidential contest, perhaps, along with mayor to julián castro from san antonio, and then who will give the keynote address, and as the obama campaign describes her, the closer, michele obama will close out the first night. you will also hear from that to
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pelosi, carolyn kennedy, lilly ledbetter, and there is a campaign to get betty white to speak at the convention. that was reported this morning in "politico." there is a live picture from the time warner arena. there are people about, but that is a live picture of the podium at the time table -- time warner cable arena. joining us in the c stands to deal a couple of blocks away from that arena is bob morgan, president and ceo of the charlotte -- saint -- c-span studio, just blocks away from that arena, is president and chief appeal of the charlotte chamber of commerce, bob morgan. what you see as the benefits of hosting the convention?
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guest: good morning, and welcome. we're still learning. this is the first time to host the convention, and for many of us the first time to be part of a convention. we have of the other cities that hosted conventions. you hear numbers from $75 million to 2 $1 million. i do not know what the numbers are exactly. we have more guests in our city than ever before. we have more opportunities like this and through the 15,000 members of the media who are now here, in addition to covering the convention, they are covering charlotte, learning and discovering charlotte, and for us it is an unprecedented opportunity. for those in the hospitality and tourism industry, the volume of parties, activities and seminars during the day -- delegation
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breakfast -- it is almost surreal, the volume of activity that takes place around this type of event. there's an economic impact for many people, from public safety employees, to those in hospitality and tourism. there's a lot of business to be head this week. host: mr. morgan, 15,000 hotel rooms have been booked. how many of those are within a close range of downtown? how many hotel rooms total does charlotte have? guest: we have over 30,000 in the greater charlotte region, in the media downtown area, and i believe it is about 5000. we of people staying within a one-hour radius of charlotte, which from my understanding is common. charlotte is in mecklenburg county. the surrounding counties, too,
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are so -- in joint business not just to hotel bookings, but throughout many venues. host: as we continue our conversation, we want to put the numbers on the screen so you can dial in and participate with our conversation with the present an ceo of the charlotte chamber of commerce. mr. morgan, where the biggest employers in charlotte? -- who are the biggest employers in charlotte? guest: charlotte is the second- biggest financial services sector in the country, and is home to bank of america. the financial-services sector employs about 50,000 people in the region. healthcare is extra the largest employer, in plain over 80,000. we are home to the carolina health care system, the largest
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nonprofit health care provider with hospitals throughout the carolinas, with over 28,000 employees in the charlotte-area. we have a major presence by the presbyterian hospital which is headquartered in winston, -- winston-salem, just an hour and half from charlotte. healthcare is growing because as the baby boomer population ages health care is where there will be a lot of growth. we have seen a rise in the energy sector. since the downturn in 2008, anchored by duke energy, we have seen companies like toshiba and siemens, and many others, some in traditional fossil and nuclear energy businesses, and others in some of the alternatives, the dearly lithium battery related technologies, the have added about 5000 jobs in a less four years. our economy is diverse.
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there are some industries that drive the economy that do not make headlines. we remaining manufacturing of with the largest percentage of jobs in manufacturing of most major metropolitan areas. we are a distribution center. charlotte began its growth as the crossroads of a couple of railroads the connectors to ports on the east coast. we are the crossroads of a couple of interstates. the big story from the economic developers the perspective is the charlotte airport. nothing drives our economy more than the charlotte airport. we are the 29th largest city in the united states, and our airport is the sixth busiest in the world as the hub to u.s. airways. we have daily direct service to virtually every market in north america, we reach most of the european capitals. we are one-stop from virtually anywhere in the world. that gives companies connect ability to customers and
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partners throughout the world. transportation and distribution then becomes a leading driver of the economy. we are doing unique things at the airport to keep growing. a couple of additional statistics -- there are 42 flights a day from charlotte to new york city. you are in financial services or other industries in the need to reach partners or customers in new york, you can get there. there are more flights out of charlotte than there are out of laguardia, something few people would think. transportation and distribution is a major driver of our economy. host: how do you become a banking center? special legislation? how you promote yourself as a banking center? guest: the history is interesting. in the 1920's, north carolina was progressive in allowing for branch banking, which gave north carolina bank's the culture of acquiring other banks when many
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states around us did not allow that. you can go back further to the 1800's when gold was discovered in the region. the first branch of the u.s. mint was located in charlotte. go to the 1920's, and the branch banking legislation. there was a decision a couple of decades later to put a branch of the federal reserve bank in richmond in charlotte as opposed to other parts of the carolinas, so what happened in the 1980's is a our banks began to push for regional interstate banking, which allow them to expand. that was followed by national interstate banking. we had aggressive, ambitious bankers that wanted to compete with new york-based banks and to compete nationally and globally they knew they had to compete with the city where there workforce would want to live band raised families.
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throw in all of them -- throw in all of that and good luck, the home of bank of america, and formerly of wachovia, we grew into the financial center but we are today. -- that we are today. it matters today. they still bring more wealth into our economy than any other. they help us to recruit corporate headquarters. they help us to recruit headquarters of all industries to charlotte, in part, back to the issue of if you're going to build a bank in charlotte that is competitive with new york, san francisco and others, you need to have the quality of life that allows you to attract the people that will run that bank. that applies to other companies
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as well. host: bob morgan, you mentioned charlotte is a manufacturing center. what is made in charlotte that we might know by name? guest: you have no doubt heard of the german company siemens, which president obama featured in his state of the union address. they have manufactured turbines for the natural gas industry. the president is interested in siemens because they export about $600 million worth of product from charlotte outside of the united states on an annual basis. the other thing is they are in the process of getting about 850 new jobs from canada, and jobs that are part of a $200 million expansion that pay more than $25 an hour. siemens finds the transportation infrastructure to be to their advantage.
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they find the work force. we have a large work force. it is growing. there are people here that know how to make things and run businesses. our work force is young and diverse. siemens is one great example of manufacturing that takes place in this community. we of numerous other high-tech manufacturing that takes place here. we do not have as much as the traditional textile industry, but we do still have some textile business in this market. we are one hour, two hours from the bmw assembly plant from upstate south carolina. we have many suppliers located in charlotte. host: you mentioned textiles. how many textiles, or what kind of textiles are still manufactured in charlotte?
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guest: well, there is still yard. i used to work in one of the textile capital. the army still spawn there. sewing thread is still manufactured there. -- yarn is still spun there. sewing thread is still manufactured there. there is as much product being produced, but with less technology, said the employment base is not what it has been historically. host: let's take some calls. rikki. democrat, georgia. caller: i want to ask mr. morgan how has this economy improved over the last four years under president obama? host: mr. morgan, the last four
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years for charlotte. guest: 2008 was tough. we woke up on a monday morning in september with news that wachovia was going to be taken over by citigroup. a couple of days later wells fargo came in with a cleaner acquisition of wachovia. wachovia, at that time, employed 20,000 people in charlotte. today, wells fargo, having made charlotte their east coast headquarters, employs more people than that. it is a different mix, a different income level, certainly, and there is no way to sugar coat and the loss of corporate headquarters, but charlotte dodge the bullet. they needed charlotte, and we needed them. it hit us between the eyes that
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frankly our economy has always been fairly diverse. we had perhaps forgotten that. the perception have become that we were a one-industry town. it was in debt crisis that we began to focus on the energy sector and the opportunities that exist there, and we have been able to realize some of those opportunities with 4000 to 5000 jobs in that sector over the last couple of years. we have a growing appreciation for health care in our market. we are not the home to a medical school, so we are not thought of as a medical center, but when we look at the kellogg -- carolina's health-care system, presbyterian hospital, they are recruiting the top professionals from around the world, giving us a very high quality of health
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care, and we focus more on that. we're also focused on the development of the entrepreneur. as a banking center, some would think you can not be a banking center and be friendly to small businesses and entrepreneurs. we do not accept that. we have more of a focused than ever before and how we put together the pieces of support and resources within the entrepreneur community. we would like to be thought of alongside places like london, shanghai, singapore and silicon valley better known for embracing those that want to start businesses, particularly those in the i.t. field. in the last four years, we have suffered the effects of the economy. there is no doubt about that. our housing market is an interesting story. our housing market, prior to the
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downturn had not heated up like other markets around the country. we did not see double-digit appreciation in the housing market, and as a result we were one of the last housing markets to enter the negative evaluation with the downturn in late-2009. we struggled with that. frankly, our housing market in the last 12 months have started to come back. we're not back to 2007 levels with home-building and construction not as strong as it was before, but what we are optimistic about is that notwithstanding the economic downturn, people have continued to move to charlotte. over the last decade charlotte has been the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the united states -- the fastest metropolitan -- fastest-growing metropolitan area in the united
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states. people want to live here. companies are attracted to people. we saw population growth decline and now it is back to 2% in 2010. we do not have the numbers in 2011, but anecdotal evidence which suggests we are on the path to steady growth. that is one of the reasons we are excited a balk and opportunity like hosting the democratic national convention -- excited about an opportunity like hosting the democratic national convention. charlotte is a good product to sell. that is our job the chamber of commerce. when people come here, they see an attractive quality of life. they see companies that are growing and expanding and they want to be part of that. >> 10% is the current unemployed rate in charlotte. the next call for bob morgan comes from smithtown, n.y.. ryan, go ahead. caller: yes, mr. morgan, i was
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wondering if you had contingency plans for what charlotte would do wells fargo and bank of america run into more trouble because they are extremely leveraged. i think now would be the time, since republicans like to talk about? so much, now would be a good time to talk -- debt so much, now would be a good time that if you head derivatives to global corporate and individual that, that is sitting on $60 showing of gdp. -- $60 trillion of global gdp. guest: that is not a figure that i am familiar with. bank of america, wells fargo,
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and they bring more wealth into our economy than any other. very little gets done without the financial services industry taking a lead role to make good things happen in charlotte. having said that, we are more than just a banking center. we have little control at the local level over some of the biggest -- bigger business challenges and policy issues facing the industry. what we can do is continue to focus on diversifying the economy, playing to our strengths, and that means continuing to recruit other financial services companies, and one of the things we've seen during this downturn is that others in the financial- services industry see the challenge that larger banks are going to -- through, and that presents an opportunity. they want to be here. we have competition not just between the two largest banks, but some of the next year, like
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u.s. banks, pnc, of first citizens -- banks that seek a competitive market. they see charlotte has the infrastructure and the work force to service the market and they see opportunity for themselves here. so, we continue to create platform where whether it is banks, manufacturers, whenever the industry, they want to do business in charlotte and people will want to live here. there are three things that cause people or companies to come to charlotte. we have a cost of living, cost of doing business, that is 93% of the national average. your dollar goes further in charlotte than it does in many other metropolitan markets. the work force, and very attractive to companies of all sorts. it is large, growing, increasing the young and diverse. third, connect ability.
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-- the charlotte airport is the third biggest in the country -- six biggest in the country. they can reach customers and partners easily. we could focus on those things as a community and continue to focus on recruiting a diversity of industries. we think that is how we prepare ourselves for whatever the challenges are of the economy going forward. host: roger. one minute or two left. caller: good morning. i want to congratulate c-span on great reporting on the republican and democratic convention. my question is when the democratic convention is finished, there is 10% unemployment, like you said, what will happen to charlotte, what will happen to north carolina, and what will happen to north carolina in general if governor romney takes the state?
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host: any response for that caller? guest: i do not know the impact of the election, and i will try not to be political. north carolina will continue to be one of the fastest-growing states in the united states. charlotte will continue to be the fastest or one of the fastest-growing metropolitan markets in the united states. the convention is bringing 15,000 members of the media. hundreds of thousands of college students hungry to learn about our community and their careers. there are people from this event alone that will not want to leave or come back as soon as they can. we have good things to sell. this is a unique opportunity to tell the story and cause people and companies to want to be here. we are excited. we do follow the ups and downs of the national economy, which is why we care about what is
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happening in washington and at the state-level, but there is no reason to think that the ingredients that caused our growth over the last decade are going to change. we have a strong competitive advantage is that we expect to continue for some time. host: mr. morgan, we were showing people video of the downtown charlotte, and that tallest building in a manner -- middle. guest: is 60 stories and a beautiful icon. a couple of blocks down the road is the duke energy tower, which i believe is 48 stories. those two really frame the skyline in charlotte we are proud of. host: mr. morgan, thank you. will you be attending the convention? guest: i hope not to miss a single minute. host: thank you. bob morgan, president and ceo of the charlotte chamber of
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commerce. the democratic convention kicks off today at 5:00 p.m. eastern time gavel-to-gavel on c-span and c-span.org of course, but in the last hour you will see governor martin o'malley of --yland, who julián castro julián castro, and then finally first lady michelle obama who will be the closer at tonight's convention. more information is available that c-span.org, which is a democratic convention hub for the week. you can go there and find anything did you would ever want to know about the convention we will leave you with a live picture of the inside of the time warner cable arena. the anacostia is when the convention starts. -- 5:00 p.m. this when the convention starts.
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>> we want to show you some of the speeches from past conventions and we will begin right now with hillary rodham clinton in 1996, the second nomination of bill clinton as president. here she is speaking in chicago. thanks for being with us this morning. [video clip] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
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♪ ♪ [applause] >> thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you, tipper. thank you all so much. thank you. thank you all and good evening.
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i am overwhelmed by your warm welcome. and i want to thank my friend, tipper gore. you know, we are gathered here together to have a really good time.
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[applause] i am overwhelmed and very grateful to all of you. [applause] you know after this reception, i think you all are ready for the rest of this convention, which has already been so positive and good.
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i know and you know that chicago is my kind of town. and chicago is my kind of village. [applause] i have so many friends here, people who have been important to me all my life, and it seems like every single one of them has given me advice on this speech. one friend suggested that i appear here tonight with binti, the child-saving gorilla from the brookfield zoo. you know, as this friend explained, binti is a typical chicagoan - tough on the outside but with a heart of gold underneath.
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another friend advised me that i should cut my hair and color it orange and then change my name to hillary "rodman" clinton. but after considering these and countless other suggestions, i decided to do tonight what i've been doing for more than 25 years; i want to talk about what matters most in our lives and in our nation - children and families. i wish - i wish we could be sitting around a kitchen table, just us, talking about our hopes and fears, about our children's futures. for bill and me, family has been the center of our lives.
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but we also know that our family, like your family, is part of a larger community that can help or hurt our best efforts to raise our child. right now, in our biggest cities and our smallest towns, there are boys and girls being tucked gently into bed, and there are boys and girls who have no one to call mom or dad, and no place to call home. right now there are mothers and fathers just finishing a long day's work. and there are mothers and fathers just going to work, some to their second or third jobs of the day. right now there are parents
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worrying: "what if the baby sitter is sick tomorrow?" or: "how can we pay for college this fall?" and right now there are parents despairing about gang members and drug pushers on the corners in their neighborhoods. right now there are parents questioning a popular culture that glamorizes sex and violence, smoking and drinking, and teaches children that the logos on their clothes are more valued than the generosity in their hearts. but also right now there are dedicated teachers preparing their lessons for the new school year. there are volunteers tutoring and coaching children. there are doctors and nurses caring
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for sick children, police officers working to help kids stay out of trouble and off drugs. of course, parents, first and foremost, are responsible for their children. but we are all responsible for ensuring that children are raised in a nation that doesn't just talk about family values, but acts in ways that values families. just think - as christopher reeve so eloquently reminded us last night, we are all part of one family - the american family.
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and each one of us has value. each child who comes into this world should feel special - every boy and every girl. our daughter, chelsea, will graduate from college in 2001, at the dawn of the next century. though that's not so far away, it is hard for any of us to know what the world will look like then, much less when chelsea is my age, in the year 2028. but one thing we know for sure is that change is certain - progress is not. progress depends on the choices we make today for tomorrow, and on whether we meet our challenges and protect our values. we can start by doing
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more to support parents and the job they have to do. issues - issues affecting children and families are some of the hardest we face, as parents, as citizens, as a nation. in october, bill and i will celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary. [applause] and bill was with me when chelsea was born, in the delivery room, in my hospital room, and when we brought our baby daughter home. not only did i have lots of help, i was able to stay in the hospital as long as my doctor thought i needed to be there.
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[applause] but today, too many new mothers are asked to get up and get out after 24 hours, and that is just not enough time for many new mothers and babies. ist's why the president right to support a bill that would prohib the practice of forcing mothers and babies to leave the hospital in less than 48 hours. [applause] that's also why more hospitals ought to install 24-hour hotlines to answer questions once new mothers and fathers get home. that's why home nurses can make
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such a difference to parents who may not have grandparents or aunts and uncles around to help. we have to do whatever it takes to help parents meet their responsibilities at home and at work. the very first piece of legislation that my husband signed into law had been vetoed twice - the family and medical leave law. [applause] that law allows parents time off for the birth or adoption of a child or for family emergencies without fear of losing their jobs. already it has helped 12 million families, and it hasn't hurt the economy one bit.
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[applause] you know, bill and i are fortunate that our jobs have allowed us to take breaks from work not only when chelsea was born, but to attend her school events and take her to the doctor. but millions of other parents can't get time off. that's why my husband wants to expand the family and medical leave law so that parents can take time off for children's doctors appointments and parent-teacher conferences at school. [applause] we all know that raising kids is a full-time job and since most parents work, they are, we
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are stretched thin. just think about what many parents are responsible for on any given day. packing lunches, dropping the kids off at school, going to work, checking to make sure that the kids get home from school safely, shopping for groceries, making dinner, doing the laundry, helping with homework, paying the bills, and i didn't even mention taking the dog to the vet. that's why my husband wants to pass a flex-time law that will give parents the option - to take overtime pay either in extra income or in extra time off depending upon whichever is best for your family.
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our family has been lucky to have been blessed with a child with good health. chelsea has spent only one night in the hospital after she had her tonsils out, but bill and i couldn't sleep at all that night. but our experience was nothing like the emotional strain on parents when their children are seriously ill. they often worry about where they will get the money to pay the medical bills. that is why my husband has always felt that all american families should have affordable health insurance. [applause] just last week the president signed a bill - sponsored by
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sens. kennedy and kassebaum, a democrat and a republican - that will enable 25 million americans to keep their health insurance, even when they switch jobs or lose a job or have a family member who's been sick. this bill contains some of the key provisions from the president's proposal for health care reform. it was an important step, achieved only after both parties agreed to build, not block, progress on making health care available to all americans. now the country must take the next step of helping unemployed americans and their children keep health insurance for six months after losing their jobs. [applause]
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if you lose your job, it's bad enough, but your daughter shouldn't have to lose her doctor, too. and our nation still must find a way to offer affordable health care coverage to the working poor and the 10 million children who lack health insurance today. [applause] the president also hasn't forgotten that there are thousands of children languishing in foster care who can't be returned home. that's why he signed legislation last week that provides for a $5,000 tax credit for parents who adopt a child.
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it also, it also abolishes the barriers to cross-racial adoptions. never again will a racial barrier stand in the way of a family's love. my husband also understands that parents are their child's first teachers. not only do we need to read to our children and talk to them in ways that encourage learning; we must support our teachers and our schools in deeds as well as words. [applause]
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the president announced today an important initiative called america reads. this initiative is aimed at making sure all children can read well by the third grade. it will require volunteers, but i know there are thousands and thousands of americans who will volunteer to help every child read well. [applause] for bill and me, there has been no experience more challenging, more rewarding, and more humbling than raising our
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daughter. and we have learned that to raise a happy, healthy and hopeful child, it takes a family, it takes teachers, it takes clergy, it takes business people, it takes community leaders, it takes those who protect our health and safety, it takes all of us. [applause] yes, it takes a village. [applause]
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and it takes a president. it takes a president who believes not only in the potential of his own child, but of all children - who believes not only in the strength of his own family, but of the american family, who believes not only in the promise of each of us as individuals, but in our promise together as a nation. it takes a president who not only holds these beliefs but acts on them.
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[applause] it takes bill clinton. [applause] sometimes, late at night, when i see chelsea doing her homework, or watching tv, or talking to a friend on the phone, i think to myself, her life and the lives of millions
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of boys and girls will be better because of what all of us are doing together. they will face fewer obstacles and more possibilities. that is something we should all be proud of, and that is what this election is all about. pplause] thank you very much. [applause] [applause]
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[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> if we turn away from the needs of others, we align ourselves with those forces which are bringing about this suffering. >> the white house is a bully pulpit and you should take advantage of it. >> we have nothing short of a public health crisis. >> some told me when someone has their own agenda -- >> it would be a shame to waste it. >> i think they serve as the window on the past to what was going on with american women. >> she becomes the chief confidante. she is the only one in the world he can trust them and many of the women who were first ladies were reuters. they wrote books, >> they are, in many cases, more important
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than their husbands if only because they are first and foremost defined and limited by political ambition. >> dolley madison glove did. mrs. monroe hated it. >> she warned her husband you cannot rule without including what women want and have to contribute bennett during the statement, he was left breathless than there was too much looking down and i think it was too fast. there is not enough change of pace. >> she is probably the most tragic of all of our first ladies. >> she later wrote in her memoir that i never made any decision. i only decided what was important and when to present it
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to my husband. you stop and think about how much power that is, it is a lot of power. >> part of the battle against cancer is to fight the fear that accompanies the disease. >> she transformed the way we look at these bugaboos and made it possible for countless people to survive and to flourish as a result. i don't know how many presidents realistically have that kind of impact on the way we live our lives. >> just walking around the white house grounds, i am constantly reminded about all the people who have lived there before and particularly all of the women. >> first ladies, influence and image, a new series on c-span, produced in cooperation with the white house historical
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association, coming in february, 2013. >> a live picture from charlotte, north carolina where the democratic national committee convention will kickoff tonight. in a few moments, we'll bring you an event by house democratic leader nancy pelosi, melody barnes, and bruce reed. that is set to get under way at 12:30 eastern and we will have live as part of our day-long coverage. you are looking at some of the sights and sounds inside -- outside the time warner cable arena. as the dnc gets under way this evening. we will send out a camera crew to check out the sights and sounds.
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[no audio] [no audio] [no audio] [no audio] [no audio] >> we are live, on the set of
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the national journal where we will have an event for you with house democratic leader nancy pelosi, the former white house domestic policy adviser melody barnes, and vice president joe biden's chief of staff bruce reed. it is set to get underway in just a moment here on c-span. [no audio] [no audio] [no audio]
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>> good afternoon.. good afternoon and welcome to this pass the power lunch. this is our book and to tampa. we did a similar lunch last week in tampa and have people with us. today's path to power will look at what happens in a democratic administration. i wanted to thank you on behalf of the atlantic. i am vice-president of the atlantic and i'll be joined by two colleagues moderating today's session. we will have ron brownstein and major garrett. they will be joined by a third moderator, jessica yellin. i would like to thank bank of america for supporting this luncheon and the one in tampa
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and have an opportunity to introduce anne sanukin who is my co-host from bank of america. she sets on the senior management team that oversees many of the critical functions for the bank including public policy, public strategy, corporate social responsibility, communications and marketing. she oversees many of the bank's significant commitments including the bank's commitment to low and moderate income housing in many american communities. they have offered a 10-year, $1.50 trillion community lending and investing goal which is something that anne overseas that the bank. they also have a philanthropic goals. anne looks after the goal to have employees volunteered more than 1.5 million hours to nonprofits in 2012. join me in thanking and welcoming anne sanukin.
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[applause] >> thanks, elizabeth. it is no surprise we like the words millions and billions and trillions. roles of our tongues. we have been very pleased to be part of the sponsorship and underwriting of the atlantic luncheons at various forms over the last several years. we love to hear the dialogue. we appreciate both the partisan and the bipartisan dialogue that takes place. i will tell you we began this relationship and we were just interested in the dialogue and then we later became part of the dialogue. in becoming part of the dialogue as i financial-services institution, as you can imagine, we probably, as much as anybody in this room, in this party, and in this country, are interested in approved -- in an improved economic environment.
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we are certainly aware of the challenges that are presented to all of america and we would say that we are very eager to do better ourselves and to be part of that solution. there is no economic recovery without strong banks. here is one little factor that might be interesting that even in the most difficult of years, 2009, 2010, 2011, the 250,000 employees that represent bank of america were able to provide $2.20 trillion worth of lending and that is somehow helping the economy along with $600 million of philanthropic giving. it is a start and gets better as the economy gets better and we want to be part of it and we're delighted to be a part of today's dialogue and look forward to the august panel that is about to present their case.
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thank you and enjoy your lunch. [applause] >> thanks again and to bank of america for their support in the bank's home town. i want to turn things over to ron brownstein. >> good afternoon, everybody. i am the editorial director of the national journal. we will be starting the program with the conversation with leader policy. -- leader pelosi. then we will lead a panel discussion -- a reality check -- of what we will be
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discussing. to kick us all, we are honored to be joined by nancy pelosi, the democratic leader in the house, representative from california since 1987 and previously the first female speaker of the house of representatives. what we are here mostly to talk about is what democrats would do if president obama is reelected. thes start talking about election that will determine how many seats each side will hold. most of the people in my line of work have been dubious at democrats to win the 25 seats it needs to regain a majority of the house. you have been working hard and have had 62 fund-raising events in the last five weeks. what opportunity do you see at this point? where do you see the best chance for democrats to make gains in november? >> so, you want to talk
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politics. >> to start. >> i want to thank elizabeth toanne for their nice welcome and making all this possible. i always mention that decades ago when i was in high school, in our creative writing class, we had to get a subscription to "the atlantic monthly." that was my start and that continues and i never dreamed that i would be here today been asked about the election. nobody thought we would pass the affordable care act. we told them we were going to end the did. in the drive for 25, door to door, precinct by precinct, a neighborhood by neighborhood, district by district, on the ground and in the air and in the
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new media. we have 63 seats that are held by republicans that were won by barack obama. of those, 18 were won by john kerry and we expect to win 2/3 of the ones one by john kerry and 1/3 of those won by barack obama alone, that equals 27. we expect to do that in states where the president is not campaigning -- texas, california, illinois, new york, maryland, washington state, so far, ariz. we don't know, and other states throughout the country. we can get half what we need in the first four states. then we go where the president is. florida, ohio, iowa, nevada and
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we will see some of the other states that he may or may not be in. i don't know if he will be in pennsylvania. in any event, the opportunity is there. we lost the majority last time by 250,000 votes. you would of thought it was bigger. that is just a few votes district by district. this may be more numbers that you want to know. i gave you the most conservative, cold-blooded, clear eyed, worst-case scenario of how it is. the democracy poll was always
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difficult for us and they put out something that was pre-todd akin to when they released the information, it had 27 of the toughest races for the republicans, income -- incumbent republicans, 27 races where the democrats by name or six points ahead of the republicans. it is there and it is on the ground mano a mano and we are not yielding one grain of sand because we think so much is at stake for our country. >> you have enormous the consequential decisions before the new congress is sworn in. there was a divergence last summer were you want to extend the tax cuts. house democrats came in line with that. in the post-election when we face the decisions, what blindly
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-- will you think house democrats -- >> it will be 250. we want to see if there was anywhere the republicans would say okay that is fair, people making over a million dollars per year should pay more. they would not even take it to that place. the 250 is the number and there is no discussion. >> do you think democrats would be willing, given what the cbo said about the recession, with democrats be willing to let the entire tax cut expire rather than extend it? very wealthiest. if republicans say all or nothing, will you opposed old thing? >> that's what elections are about. we should not have to have middle income people bear more
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of a sacrifice than they need to bear if the economy is not doing well. the deficit is important, very important. it drives what we do. the cbo insist upon that and that is our mantra, to reduce the deficit and pay as you go. if the economy is not good, we need to take away the middle -- we don't need to take away the middle income tax cuts. there are alternatives. >> how closely informed were your kept during the president's negotiations with john boehner in 2011? >> very closely, our house democratic caucus stood by the president. we said we support you and the
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grant agreement or whatever it was called -- the grand bargain -- i'd like the word bargain because somebody will have a problem. it is absolutely essential. we don't like some of the particular is that that's what a bargain is about. we could have cut the deficit by $4 trillion. $4 trillion. it was an opportunity to go to that place and everybody had to yield on something. house democrats were clear to the president. the day when this all came to be and the president said to harry reid and to me that we are not getting any more revenue, it will be the assumption of the expiration of the bush tax cuts to the high end, what will your caucuses do? we both said just go for it.
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the full faith and credit of the united states of america is at stake and the uncertainty is damaging to the economy, $4 trillion in deficit reduction is something -- we said we support you. he went back, agreed to that, and they walked away from the table. i don't care how many times they tell you the president' -- is just not a fact. >> the primary concern of americans is the rate of economic growth and job creation. if there is a democratic house in 2013, would you insist that any long-term deficit to be coupled with short term and more immediate measures to accelerate economic growth? >> some of the economic growth is what will reduce the deficit. what we said to our members when
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they talk about deficit reduction or the super committee, we said we trust your judgment. start with growth. put growth at the top of the table. start with our growth and make a determination about the role that investment place. you have to remember -- nothing brings more money to the treasury, nothing, than the investment in the education of the american people. it is from early education to adult education. you have to weigh the investment and the revenue. the republicans believe growth comes from tax cuts for the wealthy and it will trickle down. that did not work in the bush years. that's what helped us get in the situation we are in with deep
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deficits, near depression, not even counting the meltdown of financial institutions which may not have had anything to do with the tax cuts but that is not a path. the path is to come together, find common ground to create growth. some of the growth talks about investments. for example, when president obama became president, we met on the steps of the capitol and had swift bold action about job creation. one week and one day after that we have the recovery act. it created or saved 3.5 million jobs. some of these things required an investment but it created growth tha. >> these were consequential in
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terms of long term but where the economy is now, if there is a democratic majority in 2013, would you pursue measures designed for short-term, immediate stimulus? is there a need --? >> the president has made it clear where the republicans have obstructed him that the american jobs act is an immediate path to job growth. some of that contains what we called a, b, c. a - make it in america. b - build the infrastructure of america. c - community, the education of our children and the safety of our neighborhoods in terms of the public role to encourage the private sector to succeed. that is largely a part of the president's american job act.
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he was stopped at every turn by the republicans. i don't know why they would think it is a good idea to stop job growth but nonetheless, i think it stems from their anti- government ideology that there should be no public role. >> with a democratic congress simply want to let the bush tax rate expire for the top or would you want to pursue more fundamental tax reforms? >> there is bipartisan agreement that we have to put the full tax code on the table and simplify it and make it more clear and simple. we need to do whatever it takes with no ideology, just come to the table and say if we do this, we can lower the rate. we don't want to say we will change the tax code in be revenue neutral. we need revenue to grow our
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economy and to reduce the deficit. everybody agrees that the tax code has to be addressed and that loopholes need to be closed. it is a question of which one of them -- a tax credit for wind and solar is job-creating, $38 million for big oil? i don't think so. we have to have that in this debate. >> the president was recently in the news last week and he said he thought he could do immigration reform in his second term. why would it be different in 2013. >> we passed the dream act. it would have a prospect of getting 60 votes in the house. we took it up and passed it.
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but that a majority of the votes in the senate but the republicans prevented it from getting 60 votes that were needed. comprehensive immigration reform is something that we have to deal with and has been done in a bipartisan way. governor romney at the acceptance speech started off with immigration and said how wonderful it was to have immigrants in our country and we are all immigrants and indeed we are. this is the same governor who wanted to deport 11 million people from our country. that is not a solution.
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yes, we have to do immigration reform. president george w. bush understood this. he knew this issue very well. in his head and in his heart. he knew what was the right leg in could not persuade the members of his own party to do it. >> is there a commitment that if there is a democratic majority, a bill that would threaten the status of the 11 million people who are believed to be here on documented? is there a commitment you would bring a bill to address that on the floor in the first two years of a democratic majority? >> we have to do it. we have to build bipartisan support to do it. so the bill will pass in the house and senate and be signed by the president of united states. we win, get ready for that, get used to it. you know what we did in our
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first 100 hours before. we worked in a bipartisan way with george bush contrary to what the republicans have not done with president obama. we go in, first bill -- jobs, jobs, jobs. the american jobs act is on the president's agenda. next, creating growth and reducing the deficit. the other thing we have to do is change the political system. i have this dare - disclose -- to amend the constitution to overturn citizens united, reform the system, take it all the way to public financing of
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campaigns and they let people if they are democrats or republicans who will take back our democracy so that we're the government of the many and not the government of the money. a democracy, not a ploy rocker's stake -- a plutocracy. we can do that in a new congress. reform is very important to insure the public's confidence in government. why do we need this and was campaigning? let's get down to what the american people expect and deserve and what our founders paratroops fight to protect our freedom, and what our children aspire to. >> leader pelosi, thank you for joining us today and we
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appreciate your time. [applause] we will be joined jessica yellin, and gene sperling. he is closely watching the detroit tigers when he is not watching the campaign. thank you for being here. thank you for joining us. as we discussed, this will be a very unusual transition regardless of who wins.
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let's assume that president obama is reelected. there is a cascade of important decisions that have to be made and the most important one may be on the tax cuts. if the republicans insist on extending the entire bush tax cuts, with the president be willing to let the entire tax cut expire on january 1 despite the concerns the cbo has raised what that might mean to the economy? >> the important thing to understand is that we think p period after the election is important. can we make progress on the broad based grand bargain agreement te? we don't agree with everything in bowles-simpson but the basic framework that in the
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entitlement savings and significant revenues is the core principle and it be done in a way that protect the vulnerable and asks those that are most well-off to contribute the most, we need to do something and we need to come together and i think there are many people who understand that is the case. think -- i think we should be looking at the post- electperiod as an opportunity. there is a gun to our heads in need that to compromise. i believe the number one reason we have not been able to have that type of compromise is that a portion of the republican leadership and certainly the current republican vice- presidential nominee and house budget committee chairman have stuck to the most extreme fiscal position which is either for someone to say that all of the
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deficit reduction should come from revenue or older should come from spending cuts. that is not anything that an independent bipartisan group of experts agree on. i think we need to use this moment to bring everyone together. i don't think we will come to the moment that you are mentioning. i don't believe at the end of that day that the republicans will be willing to tell the country that they are so committed to not having one penny of revenues from the high end of americans that they're willing to raise taxes $3,000 per year on middle-class families. i don't think we will get to that themthis sounds like the se discussion we were having last summer. i just interviewed john boehner about this and the president for a new documentary.
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speaker boehner points out he was willing to decrease revenue by $800 billion. he said the president blew up the deal. the president says that is not the case. he was willing to cut a deal and the speaker walked away. they both seem and bettered by this experience. how will these two men worked together and how will there be a difference? >> one has to hope that in this environment, after the election, with the threat of sequester and the threat of the tax cut expiration that you would be in the best situation to come to a more reasonable grand bargain than we saw from the republicans last year. i don't necessarily expect speaker banner to say something different. how can he went the republican
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nominee is out there saying that he would not accept a deal that was $10 of spending cuts to $1 of revenue when you have the republican nominee out there with a proposal that promises almost $5 trillion in tax breaks to the well off. this is not a situation where what i would expect this to be the moment where you see this movement. i am more confident with the reelection of president obama that people will realize they need to compromise more. i give john boehner credit purse. nunnepersonally. he was willing to come to the table and work on revenues and i give him credit for that. his account of what happened is wrong. secondly, president obama

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